Mir Bahmanyar

former home and now museum at Burg. Source: Mir

Couple or so years ago I traveled to Germany - it may have been to watch a Rammstein concert or ten - but I made a stop at Burg by Magdeburg in Germany. This was the home of the great Prussian war philosopher General Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), who by-the-by served with the Russian army once he became disgruntled with Prussia’s leadership. He returned to Prussian service toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He is best known for a series of books on various campaigns but his greatest work was On War which was edited and published by his very brilliant wife Marie (1779-1836). What inspired me to make this sojourn was the excellent book on her written by Vanya Eftimova Bellinger called Marie von Clausewitz: The Woman Behind the Making of On War. I rarely get excited by books nowadays but this one was inspirational and I used it as a guide to not only Burg but also to the church where the Clausewitzs were married in Berlin.

The East German version of Carl. Source: Mir

I am fortunate that I am fluent in German and it served me very well when out of the blue I called the number for the Clausewitz museum in Burg which is housed in his birth home. I met two gentleman but sadly I have forgotten the name of one, the other is the curator Klaus Möbius - well it is probably in a notebook buried in my basement. Nonetheless they were exceptional hosts. I spent two hours listening to them share their knowledge and passion with me. My wife spoke no German and they spoke no English so I translated just the bare bones minimum before her eyes glazed over completely and she drifted off to ancient Egypt no doubt.

In any event, one of them even drove me to the cemetery which was beyond nice and he also stunned me with a gift - an old East German Clausewitz library book, Selected Letters to Marie, that included a coin of Clausewitz - it is one of my most prized positions along with a lovely bronze sculpture of Napoleon that I had inherited from my father.

Karl - the awesome curator who was looking at retiring - maybe he has by now? Source: Mir

I have read On War in German as well as in English (two translations) and I also wrote about his work way back when at Cal (UC Berkeley) for former Reagan speech writer and neo-conservative Paul Seabury (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Seabury) before Cal became tainted with the hiring of torture lawyer and anti-constitutionalist John Yoo. I also wrote about Clausewitz at King’s College London on a course on Strategy taught by Marcus Faulkner. So it has been a subject of interest for decades.

Perhaps if our civilian and military leadership had actually read On War we might have avoided the disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq - but no doubt the neo-cons/military imperialists are better read in Leo Strauss’ work (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss) and our military leadership was probably too excited about going to war and looking for an increase in their already bloated budget. Plus shiny new medals probably did not hurt either – maybe there were some who actually thought that war in both of those places was the only answer for the loss of 3,000 human beings and counting – let’s not forget the first responders dying of cancer (https://www.firehouse.com/safety-health/news/21084354/firefighters-thank-teary-jon-stewart-before-911-hearing) . The things we could have done for our citizenry and first responders with that money.

What’s in the book? A coin. I forgot this gentleman’s name. Source: Mir

It was however a great thing for the 75th Ranger Regiment as it transitioned from an elite light infantry regiment to a unit capable of conduction Tier 1 operations with greater discipline and impact than for example the Navy SEALs. Anyway, that’s a whole other story…

I thought I’d put some pictures up and if anyone can remember the name of the other passionate Clausewitizian please let me know.

Also some links:

http://www.clausewitz.com